Delta-T (OT?)

Oct 08, 2026 Last reply: 1 hour ago 24 Replies
Saved reading
Jump to replies (24)

Well, it's OT in the way that Solar Panel materials are.



There was an interesting article inn BBC4's "Farming Today" this morning, about using the vast amount of waste heat from chicken houses to generate electricity. It's at

formatting link
(you might have to sign on to iPlayer to listen).



It apparently uses a new thermoelectric material called Delta-T, made by Zero Charge Technologies

formatting link
. There is no information about it at that website, and the "Farming Today" article stretched credulity past its limit. At 1:40 in the inventor states: "(Delta-T) is thin, flexible, very, very light and generates a serious amount of power. A piece about the size of a sheet A5 paper produces nearly 8 amps at 100 watts."



He also says that whereas the best solar panel can generate only



300W/m^2, Delta-T can generate 2 - 3kW/m^2, so it's 3 - 4000 watts (sic). He didn't state what the temperature differential must be to generate that power.

The sceptic in me says that this article should really have been broadcast in just under six months time...


What does BBC Verify say on the matter?

Nothing as yet; it's all very new. There doesn't even seem to have been a press release, so quite how "Farming Today" got involved is a bit of a mystery.

Unless this breaks the first law of thermodynamics I call BS.

I couldn't find any reference to the company, the directors or their buzzwords in a IPO patent search ...

According to the website, it's due to be broadcast in 900 years:

"08/10/2926: Fly tipping, History of barbed wire, Energy from heat"

formatting link

-- Richard

Hmm:

"It is our aspiration to provide sustainable, carbon free, low cost, energy globally with our game changing technology.

Active Tape Matrix is good for the planet.

Active Tape Matrix requires no batteries, it's totally carbon free, emission free, and is fully sustainable.

Active Tape Matrix itself has an estimated life cycle in the region of 20+ years, and uses solid-state technology requiring little or no maintenance.

It requires no lithium batteries, because of the continuous power generation, unlike Wind Turbines and Solar Energy.

Active Tape Matrix also has no moving parts.

There is great interest in Active Tape Matrix technology to provide baseload electricity, which is essential as the heat from geothermal wells, for example, means the voltage runs 24/7 & 365 days a year. This provides a very good baseload.

In truth, with Solar and Wind renewable energy, the more you add, the more unstable the grid becomes, so a reliable baseload is essential, which at present, is provided by heavy rotating machinery, such as a gas and coal fired or steam turbines, with high inertia to ensure the grid doesn't fail.

It's a fact that has been admitted, by industry experts, that a completely solar or wind powered grid is a practical impossibility without something in there to stabilise it.

It's our opinion that billions are likely going to be spent on unproductive batteries, along with even more wind turbines to charge them, and all that cost will be added to rising global energy bills.

Also, this Active Tape Matrix technology has the ultimate potential, to provide reliable baseload power for the whole of Great Britain and many other countries.

It will also bring down the price of electricity world wide, and enable the UK and other participating countries to make our economy more competitive.

The benefit to households here and in developing countries who have little or no electricity, is boundless with the proper support and diversification, using natural resources

The world is awakening to Geothermal Energy.

Active Tape Matrix has the answer."

formatting link

was their £50k Innovate UK Fast Start Grant proposal in 2022. The CEO's other company is to do with welding:

formatting link
"Active Tape Matrix" only has a few Google hits, all publicity for this company. No hits on Google Scholar.

Theo

The best one is still the Italian sphaghetti harvest documentary.

from their website

ZCT have perfected a way in which thermal waste can be harvested to produce electricity. This is achieved by harnessing the potential difference of a source of heat (or cold) with an outside ambient environment.

end quote

so some form of peltier mechanism.

My favourite (it fooled me, but I was young) was a New Scientist article which claimed that ancient Greek spoken word and song had been recovered from minute undulations in plaster. This was due to the plasterers speaking and singing and their trowels vibrating with the sound.

Bosh bosh, shoom shoom wallop, dosh. (Χάρι Ένφιλντ)

Well, yes, it's my aspiration too as it goes. What a coincidence!

Easiest £50k they've ever earned . . .

So just like any thermal power station then With the same thermpdynamic constraints

In message <11a7j1r$3kh6i$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, Jeff Layman snipped-for-privacy@invalid.invalid writes

"An eminent Oxford professor, in his own words says “this technology is the largest step in thermoelectric power generation in 80 years, and is a game changer”

Well you can't argue with facts like that.

It looks like a thermo-electric generator using the Seebeck effect. I actually fixed one of these recently ; it used the heat from a woodburner to drive a fan to blow the hot air into the room, I digress

The ploy is to use waste heat from chicken farms

Consider an array of hexagonal packed spherical frictionless chicken in a vacuum...

Chickens have a body temperature of about 41C and like to be kept about

35C. They don't move about ,they just sit and lay eggs .or wait to be big enough to pursue a short career in the food industry.

The best you can do is dictated by the Carnot Efficiency

{Thot-Tcold}/Thot % There's a TE factor that reduces this substantially.

For hot side of say 35C and an ambient of 15C the efficiency is about

6.5%

An A5 surface at a deltaT of 20C can give about 24W if my sums are right. Stephan Bolzman - using 0.9 emissivity

Even for a perfect Carnot engine, I can only see about 1.5W .

Someone can check my sums. I could sanity check on the woodburner generator

formatting link
I suppose the Professor's field might have been Sociology.

Brian

I would guess so. But it's amazing what some technobabble can do to attract the masses.

I would expect a pile of rotting Chicken manure to have a maximum internal temperature of 70C. (traditional method for disposing dead calves etc. was burial in the dung heap). No longer permitted!

Eric Laithwaite was a famous professor whose career was blighted by a mistaken belief in certain "scientific" matters.

We'll never know unless his name is published.

I vaguely remember it was something about centri**** force and gravity ?

Is there any news on which game they hope to change? Tiddlywinks?

It looks like greenwashing so his field might be in the climate emergency.

No doubt lots of eminent professors support them by email. Unfortunately they cannot be named because Data Protection.

His Royal Institution xmas lecture for kids. It showed something like a kid holding a bike wheel, spun up by electric motor then removed, while standing on a bathroom scales and his weight decreased. QED

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required